“Our commitment to Quaker process isn’t primarily a commitment to efficiency. It’s a commitment to being the body of Christ, with all the discomfort that life in the body entails. When we fail in our process, we fail in our life as the body, because failure of the process inevitably means that one part of the body has been judged to mean less to the body than another part of the body.”
“The variable that marks some periods as barren and some as rich in prophetic vision is in the interest, the level of seeking, the responsiveness of the hearers. The variable is NOT in the presence or absence, or the relative quality and force, of the prophetic voices. Prophets grow in stature as people respond to their message. If their early attempts are ignored or spurned their talent may wither away.”
“I want to put this in such a way that you get a little scared about your responsibility. Because you should be. Not so scared you’re paralyzed and not able to do it, but aware that we are suspending the normal rules of social discourse in a very profound way and inviting you into a parallel universe and alternate reality.”
“One day while plowing I heard a voice, whether inside me or outside of me I knew not, but I was awake. It said, ‘Go thou and see the president.’ I answered, ‘Yea, Lord, thy servant heareth.’ And unhitching my plow, I went at once to the house and said to mother, ‘Wilt thou go with me to Washington to see the president?’ ‘Who sends thee?’ she asked. ‘The Lord,’ I answered.”
“When God taps a person on the shoulder and says, ‘Do this,’ a natural response – and perhaps the only appropriate response – seems to be, ‘Who, me? I am not adequate.’
In contrast to the fishermen who left their nets when Jesus said, ‘Follow me,’ many are the stories of prophets who need to hear the words ‘Fear not, for I am with you.'”
“It hath been an objection in the minds of many, and several times hath been objected by the clergy, or ministers and others, against women’s speaking in the church; and so consequently may be taken, that they are condemned for meddling in the things of God.”
“I am a man who has been ‘kicked’ by God, just as a boy kicks a ball in the direction he wants it to go. I have been driven and led by Him.”
“We generally think of prophets as dramatic and conspicuous people; not only are they sometimes martyred, they occasionally sit on facing benches, makes speeches, get arrested, and are generally in the limelight. We need those conspicuous and bold prophets, and from time to time, even the most unassuming Quaker must take such a stand.”
“Quakers and many others who are practiced in prayer and meditation have had the experience of an insistent inner voice which moves them towards a specific course of action. In the silence this voice is at first soft and gentle, but if it is not heeded it can become stronger and stronger until the course of action is clear. Quakers call this a ‘concern,’ and it is this which is the source of many of the testimonies that are later adopted by the whole of the Quaker family.”
“How we respond as individuals to the idea of being led, and how we respond to the actual leadings of the Holy Spirit when they come upon us, is closely related to how we feel about our own worth in God’s eyes; whether we can see ourselves as God’s beloved creations and human beings for whom Jesus Christ lived and died and lives again. In those times of my life when I have felt worst about myself and my life to date, I have been about as responsive as the rock mentioned in my journal passage: not believing that God cared, I did not believe that he would bother to lead me to say or to do any specific thing. More recently, as I have come to know God’s personal love for me experientially, I have also come to believe in and experience personal and specific divine leadings in my daily life.”
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